The Truth About Political Violence

Both Sides Are Guilty, But The Data Shows One Side Is Much More Violent

Every time political violence erupts in America, the same script plays out. The left points at the right. The right points at the left.

Each side screams, “THEY are violent, WE are innocent.” And every time, it’s a lie, mostly because the ones screaming are lying about the other side, and that's usually the right blaming the left for violence that they commit themselves. It's typical psychological projection, and people who care about the facts know the truth.

FACTS WITH DATA: Multiple peer-reviewed studies and investigations show that while political violence comes from both ends. However, radical far right-wing actors commit far more of the deadly attacks than radical far left-wing actors.

A Reuters special report found that of the 14 fatal political attacks since Jan. 6, 2021 in which the assailant had a clear partisan leaning, 13 were right-wing. Reuters A study by the University of Maryland’s START consortium, for Brookings, finds that right-wing extremist violence has killed more people in recent years in the U.S. than left-wing or Islamist motivated attacks. Brookings+2UMD Start+2 Also, survey data shows that MAGA Republicans are significantly more likely, when compared to other groups, to express willingness or openness to using political violence. Centers for Violence Prevention+1

Here are some numbers.

The truth is simple: both sides are violent. However, the numbers, statistics and the facts show that the far right tends toward more violence than the far left.

Both sides have extremists who commit acts of terror, intimidation, and assassination attempts. Pretending otherwise isn’t just dishonest, it’s dangerous. Because the moment you start believing that only the “other side” is violent, you’ve swallowed the bait of the real dividers.

These dividers want you enraged, scared, and ready to fight your neighbor. They don’t want peace. They want war, an actual violent war in the streets. And the more we let ourselves fall into their partisan trap, the closer we get to giving them exactly what they want.

This is not about excusing violence. It’s about telling the truth: political violence is an American disease that infects both left and right. If you’re serious about defending democracy, you condemn it wherever it comes from.

At the same time, condemnation doesn’t mean submission. No one should stand by while thugs, whether in red hats or blue shirts, or black hoodies beat them down. We have the right, under the law and under the Constitution, to defend ourselves and our families. Self-defense is not the same as political violence, it’s survival.

Right-Wing Violence: What the Data Shows

Recent academic and government research strongly indicates that political violence from the far right in the U.S. is significantly more frequent, lethal, and organized than from the far left. For example, a study co-led by University of Maryland’s CCJS looked at data from PIRUS (Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the U.S.) from 1948-2018 and the Global Terrorism Database worldwide; it found that right-wing extremists are almost twice as likely to commit violent acts than left-wing extremists. CCJS

Further, according to Brookings / University of Maryland researchers, since 9/11, far-right extremist violence has killed more people in the United States than any other political extremist cause (including Islamist extremists). Brookings

Another data point: in the FBI & DHS joint “Domestic Terrorism Strategic Intelligence Assessment,” law enforcement officials assess far-right extremism and racially/ethnically motivated violent extremism as among the highest threats among domestic extremism categories. Federal Bureau of Investigation+2PBS+2

Also, it’s not just killings. Many plots, incidents, assaults, and hate-crimes tied to extremist ideology are more frequently associated with right-wing or racially motivated far-right actors. Brookings’ analysis shows numerous lower-level violent acts—beyond mass killings—that together make right-wing violence far more persistent and present. Brookings+1

Thus, the data doesn’t support the narrative that both sides are equally violent. The evidence shows that while both left-wing and right-wing extremists commit violence, the far right is responsible for a larger share of deadly attacks, consistent plotting, and a growing escalation in incidents.

Left-Wing Violence: What the Data Shows

Anarchist / Anti-Government / Environmental / Animal-Rights Extremism
A study by GWU (George Washington University) looked into anarchist violent extremism (AVE) in America. It finds that though rare, there are instances where people motivated by anti-capitalist, environmental, or animal rights beliefs commit or plan violent acts. Importantly, many of those acts are smaller in scale, or involve property destruction, arson, or confrontations, rather than mass casualty attacks. Program on Extremism

Specific Incidents
• The 2019 Tacoma ICE Detention Center attack: Van Spronsen, motivated by anarchist ideology, attempted to firebomb an ICE facility, which is a violent act. He was shot by police. Wikipedia
• The killing of Aaron Danielson by Michael Reinoehl in 2020: Reinoehl, who claimed anti-fascist motivations, killed Danielson under a claim of self-defense after following him. It was rare in recent years: left-wing fatal political homicide is almost an outlier, not the norm. Wikipedia

Comparative Studies
In “A Comparison of Political Violence by Left-wing, Right-wing, and Islamist Extremists in the United States and the World” by Jasko et al. (2022), researchers compared massive datasets (PIRUS in the U.S., and the Global Terrorism Database globally). They found that:

Left-wing extremists are less likely to commit violent acts (in U.S. data) compared to right-wing extremists. PMC+1

When left-wing violence occurs, it tends to be less deadly on average. For example, in global terrorism data, attacks by left-wing groups are significantly less likely to result in high fatality counts compared to Islamist or right-wing extremist attacks. PMC

Trends & Magnitude

Many databases note that left-wing political violence has declined relative to earlier decades (e.g. 1960s-70s) in the U.S., especially violent leftist organizations and guerrilla movements. EBSCO

Left-wing incidents are there, but far outnumbered by right-wing motivated political violence in recent years—especially in terms of fatalities, persistent extremist organization, frequency of plots, and the amount of deadly attacks. (Multiple studies note this difference). PMC+2CCJS+2

But don’t get it twisted: if your instinct after an assassination, an attack, or a bombing is to shout “only the other side does this!” then you are the problem. You’re the one tearing the country apart. You’re the one fueling the fire that could burn this nation down.

We need de-escalation, yes. But de-escalation begins with honesty.

Stop lying about who’s violent. Stop pretending it’s only them.

Start telling the truth: violence is part of human civilization on both sides of the political spectrum, it’s toxic, and it’s being used as a weapon to divide us.

The question is, are you going to keep playing into their hands, or are you going to stand up, call out the liars, and stop the march toward civil war?

The Bigger Picture: Violence Beyond PoliticsBut here’s where the conversation usually goes off the rails. We stop at politics. We tally up which side has more blood on its hands and then hurl the numbers like weapons. That’s not the whole truth either.

The reality is that much of the violence tearing at America isn’t driven by left or right labels. It’s not always carried out by people quoting manifestos or flying partisan flags. More often, it’s driven by human beings in crisis, alienated, untreated, desperate, and enabled by a society that makes violence easier than healing.

Law enforcement and criminology research point to the same recurring factors across thousands of cases:

• Mental health struggles and personal crisis. Depression, paranoia, suicidality, job loss, divorce, bullying, people at a breaking point who lash out.
• Social alienation. A sense of powerlessness, invisibility, or grievance that festers until it explodes.
• Easy access to weapons. The thing that turns private breakdowns into public tragedies.

That’s the triangle of violence in America. Politics sometimes sits on top of it, especially in the case of far-right extremism, but underneath, crisis and access are the real fuel.

So yes, both sides have violent actors, and the data shows the far right commits more organized, deadly political violence than the far left. But if we stop there, we miss the deeper truth: the largest share of violence in this country comes from crisis, alienation, and access colliding. Pretending otherwise doesn’t protect anyone, it just guarantees the cycle keeps repeating.

But we also have to be honest about how politics itself feeds this cycle. America’s toxic debate over gun regulation and deregulation isn’t just background noise, it shapes the conditions that make violence more likely. When one side screams for absolute deregulation and the other side is painted as tyrants for even suggesting common-sense restrictions, the end result is paralysis. Nothing changes. Guns remain everywhere, and crises that could have ended quietly too often end in blood.

And here’s the darker part: people who are marginalized by society, whether economically, racially, or culturally, often find themselves shoved further and further to the edges. Alienated, unseen, and untreated, many reach for political affiliation as a way to fill the void. They look for belonging in a flag, a slogan, or a tribe. But when the ideology doesn’t actually fix their pain, when the outrage builds high enough, the most vulnerable and most radical sometimes snap. That’s when violence erupts.

This is systemic. It’s not just a matter of individual bad actors. It’s a product of a system that pushes people to the breaking point, through lack of affordable healthcare, nonexistent mental health services, growing inequality, and a culture of toxic individualism that tells people to sink or swim alone. When the pressure builds too high, some explode. And when guns are everywhere, those explosions are catastrophic.

That doesn’t excuse or condone violence. It simply puts accountability where it belongs: not only on the person who pulls the trigger, but also on the system that created the conditions for their breakdown. If we ignore that, we will never stop the cycle, no matter how many times we scream about which “side” is worse.

The Way Forward

At the end of the day, this isn’t about scoring points against “the other side.” It’s about survival. The data is clear: both sides have violent actors, but the far right is responsible for more of the deadly political violence. That fact matters. But what matters just as much is that violence in America, political or otherwise, will never be solved by finger-pointing and denial.

We don’t stop this by pretending our side is pure while theirs is corrupt. We stop it by facing reality together. We stop it by refusing to be manipulated by the dividers who want war. We stop it by building systems that treat people before they snap, by demanding accountability for those who incite violence, and by creating a culture where community and care matter more than rage and retribution.

Unity doesn’t mean surrender. It doesn’t mean giving extremists a free pass. It means ordinary Americans, left, right, and center, choosing to reject the lies that keep us at each other’s throats. It means standing together against violence, against hate, and against the system that profits from our division.

The center isn’t weakness. It’s sanity. It’s the only ground where we can stand together and build a future without constant fear of the next attack. If we want to stop the march toward civil war, we have to step out of the trenches, meet in the middle, and put humanity before partisanship. That’s not just politics, it’s survival.

Either we unite and refuse to let the radicals on both sides drag us into a war most of us don’t want, or our children will inherit a warzone and an authoritarian dystopian police state.

It’s your choice. You have a vote. Use it.

Vote out the radicals tearing this country apart.

Protest, speak out, and tell your representatives you’ve had enough of their divisive bullshit.

If they can’t get their act together, replace them with leaders who can.

Because this isn’t about left or right.

It’s about our children, and the future we leave for them.